After him hooking me up yet again, I felt like I should be in a MOAB kit. I was sponsored by MOAB when I raced for the SyMed/MOAB team back in 2003 and 2004. I loved racing for Mark Dement who runs the whole MOAB operation. Back then he had one shop in Murfreesboro. While Murfreesboro is still the main shop, they now have another one in Franklin. Jeremy runs the show down there. He's been a good friend of mine since he moved here to Tennessee and we raced together in Pro. Dude has hooked me up in a major way over the past two years. With my sweet S-Works Epic last year in addition to lots of discounts on parts and labor. They are very busy and getting something fixed typically requires dropping it off, but they always take core of mine while I wait if possible. They know I drive a long way to get to their shop and so they go out of their way to make sure I don't have to make that drive again in a few days. Jeremy has also given deals to my family. My Dad, Mom and sister have all bought mountain bikes from him since I bought my Epic. Now he has helped my wife. I feel like I am sponsored, but it has never been official. I told him I wanted to buy a jersey to support the shop. He handed me a jersey AND a pair of bibs for free. It is a high-quality Pearl Izumi kit so I know it wasn't cheap, but he said he will get his money back by having me racing in the kit. So we are making it official. I'm now sponsored by and fully supporting MOAB Bikes out of Franklin, TN. If you are in middle Tennessee and you're not going to MOAB, give them a try. You won't regret it. Jeremy is awesome and so are the rest of the staff. Not to mention they have one of the best bike mechanics this world has ever seen in Rick Harmon. There's nobody I trust more to build my wheels. I thank Mark a lot for this opportunity as well, as I know he approved all the discounts we have gotten on bikes. He has actually hinted at getting me back on the shop team for several years and we just never really put it together until now.
My first race in the new kit was at the Lock 4 Six Hour Challenge in Gallatin, TN at Lock 4 Park. This is a race I have done several times. I tend to have more bad races than good ones here, but I did manage to finally win my class last year. I was leading the overall solo group before a flat and another mechanical issue put me back in the pack. This year I wanted to go for the overall and be top solo rider on the day.
We had a really nice day for the race. It was warm, but not hot and the trail was dry and fast. I was alone at the race so I had to set up multiple feed poles for bottles and a table with a spread of food for later in the race when I might need something special to bring me back to life. Like last year, I had a box of Little Debbie snacks just in case I needed some hardcore sugar.
The start was a loop on wet grass from the morning dew before we hit the singletrack for a 9.75-mile lap of the Lock 4 woods. We started from the main parking lot in the model airplane field. The start was insane as about three pedal strokes into the race Scott Marx's frame broke in multiple places. I have never seen anything like it. His brand new Ellsworth frame failed in a big way and he somehow kept it upright. He was on my left and thankfully he got a better jump off the line than me and didn't take me out trying to save it.
Scott's bike after his start incident. Hope that's under warranty!
Can't remember where this photo came from. Sorry! Thanks to whoever took it.
I got into the woods near the front and was the first solo rider in the group. The teams immediately began battling and I just rode wheels trying to keep pace with them. My strategy was to go with them for as long as I could, then just try to hold onto the lead. I needed to make seven laps, but would have loved to do eight. You have to be fast for six full hours to do eight laps. Only laps completed by the six hour mark count in this race.
I got hooked up with the Joe Grubbs vs. Jeff Kauppi battle up front and just hung with them the first lap. Scott was on a duo team with Craig Evans. Luckily, Craig was ready to ride when Scott's bike blew up and he was able to jump in at the back of the pack. He went through the entire group on lap 1 and was up with our lead group as we completed the first lap.
The teams made their swaps and I had three new people to ride with. Scott borrowed a bike from someone and was able to take over from Craig. Joe's teammate was James Buckingham, while Jeff traded off with R.L. Hesson. Scott's pace split the group. I was the only one able to hold his wheel for lap 2 and we came in about 45 second ahead of Buckingham. The second place solo rider at this point was 3:23 behind us. Our lap time was the same as lap 1 to the second.
Craig picked me back up on lap 3 and we just rode together setting a steady tempo. Craig has won this race before and new exactly my tactic and how I needed to pace myself. He and Scott were the perfect pair for me to work with. I felt good on lap 3, but we dropped about a minute on our lap time. We lost five seconds to Joe and 27 seconds to Jeff, but were still out of sight and cruising. I had no idea where the next solo rider was, but I was expecting it to be Chris Cooper and I was always watching out for him. What I didn't know is that he was doing the three-hour race and not the six. I was running from a ghost the second half of the race.
I started to feel the effort on lap 4, but we were still smooth and fast. My bum finger was also starting to ache. It ached the rest of the day, but never got any worse. Scott's pace was still good on this lap and we continued to stay ahead of everyone else. I let a little gap go when I stopped for food and fresh bottles at the end of the lap. I got back across the Craig as he was waiting for me and we set out on another lap together. I was good until we hit the peninsula road and then I began to fade. He was still waiting on me for a several minutes before I realized I wasn't getting back to his wheel. He finally realized it too and went back to his normal pace. I started to bonk despite eating like I had planned so far. It just wasn't enough calories going in the pipe at this pace. I ate enough to get to the end of the lap when I stopped for a root beer and some Little Debbie goodies. It was desperation time for sure as that intake shows. I dropped over five and half minutes on that lap time as compared to lap 4. I still had no idea where the next solo rider was, but after looking at the lap times, everyone faded and I actually extended my lead even more.
The Duo teams passed me by on lap 6 as I still felt bad and faded more, dropping another two minutes on my lap time. This time I did lose time to second place, as Dustin Wright cut 2:15 off my lead. I also saw someone cut the course on this lap. At first I thought it was someone ahead of me having an issue and had pulled off the trail into the leaves, but then I realized that person had been behind me a mile before and was actually cutting off a loop. They knew they were busted when I came by and they dropped way back, probably giving up the little bit of time gained for the shortcut. I won't say who it was, but I will call you out on it if I ever see it happen again. Cutting the course is CHEATING and pretty low down in my opinion. If you have to cheat to place better in a local mountain bike race, you have some serious issues. And you are a loser.
I started to feel better the last mile of lap 6 and was ready to go on lap 7. The bonk was over and I gradually got faster over the course of what would be my final lap. I picked that two minutes back up on my lap time, but still lost time to Wright behind me, who cut off another 1:50. He was closing, but I had a good lead and was still able to win the Solo Open class by 4:59 and finally be the top overall solo rider at this race! This may have been the first time I have ever made it through this race without some type of problem during the race. Thanks go out to Scott and Craig for helping me all day. I couldn't have done it without their help. They won the Duo Class and were the top riders overall, the only ones to complete eight laps today.
Solo Open Men's podium
Thanks Scott Marx for getting the pic for me on my phone.
Halloween was just after Lock 4. The Halloween season was just fun this year. The local ice cream joint, Golly G's, had Reaper Ice Cream for the week of Halloween. It had a bit of Carolina Reaper pepper in it which caught my attention. And it was black which was just awesome! Shannon's clinic dressed up for their work day. They were the characters in Charlie Brown with Shannon dressing as Lucy.
Even the spiders were festive. We found this orange guy outside.
Reaper ice cream from Golly G's
Shannon's work crew as the characters of Charlie Brown
Halloween night was great. We had plenty of decorations this year. We are finally getting into the swing of actually having our own place that we can decorate. We went out and bought a few things this year and had a few things given to us. Dina bought us a giant flying skeleton with glowing red eyes. I built a bleeding candle skull. The candle is red inside and when it melts it appears like blood running down onto the skull base. Creepy, but cool! Our new additions didn't scare away the kids. After being ready to hand out candy for the past six years and not having a single trick-or-treater, we finally had our first ones this year! While I prefer the traditional Halloween costumes that have at least a little scary theme to them, like zombies, mummies and the classic werewolf, I'll give the cat and the panda a pass. They were, after all, two little girls and they were our first ever trick-or-treaters ever so I won't complain. Our neighbor also brought her two kids over to bring our total up to four for the night.
Our house actually had a few decorations this year.
The flying skeleton Dina got me.
The bleeding candle in action.
Glowing skeleton vase.
Shannon's carved pumpkin
Skeledog Snoop was on hand to supervise the candy distribution.
Our first ever trick-or-treaters!
Grady and Charli Beth from up the street.
photo by Belinda Knight
After handing out our little bit of candy, we started a fire and roasted some 'dogs. We stayed out next to the fire until we almost fell asleep before calling it a night. The only thing that would have made the night better was a midnight ride through the woods on the mountain bike.
I loved this picture of everyone roasting their hotdogs.
I did forget to check on my candle as it burned down. I thought it would have enough space to melt through the hole in the skull, but it didn't. It melted the whole skull and all that was left was a little puddle of plastic on top of the wooden base.
No more skull candle. Maybe I'll try that again next year.
October ended with great weather and I was out to enjoy it as much as possible. I was up early a lot of mornings to enjoy the sunrise and to pick peppers. We picked a lot this year. My biggest buyer makes his own rub with our peppers and I managed to get my hands on two of his newest mixes. Uncle Paul's Pepper Powder is made with peppers we grow. It's cool to see products that we helped to create. If you want to give some of the rub a try, let me know and I can get you in touch with Uncle Paul himself. The farm continues to do unbelievably well and we feel very blessed that our small business is starting to look more like a business.
Sunrise over a field of soybeans near our house
What our peppers become: Uncle Paul's Pepper Powder.
I'll talk about November and cross season in the next post as we add a new steed to the stable. Thanks for reading!
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